Robert grew up in Chickasha, Oklahoma, the son of two college professors. His parents were both Republicans and he also became one, absorbing the ambient conservatism around him. His neighbors were Republican, Oklahoma was Republican, and when he arrived at Westminster College, a private school in central Missouri, he found it was predominantly Republican, too. He liked the party’s emphasis on fiscal responsibility and reduced government regulation.

It was when he decided to pursue social psychology in grad school that he realized his classes were suddenly devoid of conservatives, even at the University of Central Oklahoma. His professors were also liberal, but Robert didn’t let on that he disagreed with them. “That would have been career suicide,” he said.

Robert went on to earn his PhD at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, and there, too, he stood out. One day, he was wearing a “College Republicans” t-shirt he had left over from his undergrad days. Another student saw him and said, “That’s hilarious, that’s an awesome joke.” Some classes devolved into mass trashings of Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush. Once, he says, a fellow grad student sent out an email to the entire department—who were all Texas state employees—suggesting that everyone go watch the rabidly liberal Michael Moore film Fahrenheit 9/11 together.

Robert thinks there are so few conservatives in the field because the topics social psychologists study—racism, discrimination, and the like—tend to be liberal topics, and conservative approaches to studies are often shut down by the liberal majority in the field. He worked on one study325 that sought to explore why whites were more likely than African Americans to get fatally hit by a car during the daytime, while African Americans were more likely than whites to be fatally struck by cars at night. Robert’s study, which used a driving simulation, found this is because of the visual contrast between a person’s skin tone and their surroundings, not because of racial bias. When he submitted the paper to journals, “I’ve never gotten reviews back that were so angry,” he told me. “They said it was a dangerous idea.” (Indeed, research also suggests that conservative psychologists, few though they might be, believe their field is hostile to their views. And in some cases, they’re right: close to 38 percent of social psychologists admit to being reluctant to choose a conservative future colleague.)326

Robert gets emails from people looking for conservative therapists, as well as messages from right-leaning faculty on other campuses searching for a friendly ear. “A combination of extremists and people who don’t have a voice,” he calls them.